The Lord Jesus is presented as the perfect servant of Jehovah, fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 42:1-7. It highlights Jesus's intimate relationship with the Father, His anointing by the Spirit, and His mission to bring justice to the nations. Unlike worldly leaders, Jesus serves with gentleness and humility, not seeking self-promotion but tenderly restoring the weak and discouraged, symbolized by the bruised reed and smoking flax. His faithfulness ensures His work will not fail, ultimately bringing international blessing as a light to the Gentiles, calling believers to emulate His servant spirit.
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Well, this is lovely to be able to meet around the Word of God in the morning like this, isn't it? I'd like you to turn with me to Isaiah forty-two and why you are. I'll just say this, that in the evenings, because I teach missions and am interested in missions, and this is our missionary week, what we are going to do is something that probably you don't get a chance often to do or hear. And so I'm going to take a sort of world survey and look at our world from the point of view of missions and what God is doing in the world today and see Asia and then Africa and then Europe and then Latin America and see various places where God is working some rather exciting things that are happening some real problem areas of the world places where we can be more aware so that our prayers can be more effective.
And I hope this will be a profitable time for you all in giving you a world awareness that will increase your missionary vision. Now, in the mornings, Bill got just a little bit tongue-tied there for a minute, but what I want to do is look at four pictures of the Lord Jesus in the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah had four special poetic sections. servant songs they're called about the greatest missionary of them all the Lord Jesus for a missionary is a sent one and a sent one accomplishes the will of him who sent him he's a missionary and so during our missions week in the morning we'd like to look at the greatest missionary the Lord Jesus as the servant and then in the evenings we'll see some of the things that he came to do through his servants in the world.
Now, you can hardly see your Bible here through all this paraphernalia and so on, but I'll do my best. And let's turn to Isaiah forty-two, and we're going to read the first seven verses together. It is difficult, isn't it? Isaiah forty-two, verse one. Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth justice unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he has set judgment in the earth, and the isle shall wait for his law. Thus saith God the Lord. He that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it. He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and to them that sit in darkness, out of the prison house.
Now the Lord will bless to us the reading of this lovely portion of his word. Scripture's outstanding theme, of course, is the Lord Jesus, and we see him in all kinds of different ways. we see him as the lamb and as a king and as the branch and as the lion and as the vine and as a priest and you could go on a number of different characterizations of the Lord Jesus but one of the greatest characterizations in all of scripture of the Lord Jesus is him as servant and the imagery of the Lord Jesus as servant comes out of the law of the Hebrew servant in the Pentateuch where the poor farmer that found he couldn't make it on his own and gives himself into the hand of another who looks after him and gives him work to do, perhaps provides a wife for him and so on.
And then on the year of Jubilee or the year of release, he would come to the master and declare himself to be a perpetual servant. And with his ear bored through with an all, he would say, I love my master. I will not go free. I will serve him forever. And his ear would be bored through as a mark of his perpetual servanthood. And he would stay on that farm for the rest of his life. Now the Lord Jesus is a servant. Isaiah calls him that in four great passages, and we're looking at the first of them this morning, and we shall look at the other three passages on subsequent mornings.
But as servant of Jehovah, the Ebed Yahweh, we see the Lord Jesus in his great capacity as the servant who brings salvation. A servant is to do work. And the work of the servant of Jehovah was to provide salvation for us. And he came to be our Savior. That was the great work that he came to do. Isaiah has four great beholds. We saw some of them the other evening. In chapter seven, verse fourteen, he says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.
And the Gospel of Luke points out very carefully the Lord Jesus in this capacity as the Son of the Virgin, the perfect man. Then in chapter thirty-two, verse one, Isaiah says this, Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness. And it's Matthew that presents the Lord Jesus as king, isn't it? Then in chapter forty, the verse we saw on Sunday, it's behold, your God and it's John that shows us the Lord Jesus in his deity as God and as the Son of God but here in chapter forty two verse one it is behold my servant and that's the character that Mark presents the Lord Jesus in as the perfect servant the one who came to do the will of his father and we're going to see some things in this passage here that point to the Lord Jesus as servant.
The character of the servant who establishes Jehovah's justice in the world. Now I want you to see four or five things about his character as we have our little Bible study here together this morning. First of all, in verse one, the glory of his relationship with the Father. Notice what he says about the servant. Behold, my servant. The servant belongs to the Father. The servant says, I am his. The Father owns him as his own. Behold, my servant.
There's that relationship. But he goes on, he says, whom I uphold. That is, the servant recognizes that he is upheld by the Father. his strength comes from the father servant says i am strengthened by the father my servant whom i uphold and then notice also something his purpose is there my chosen one the father chose the servant to do his work to accomplish his will he is the chosen one but especially Notice this phrase, in whom my soul delights.
The servant comes to please the Father. The servant says, I live to please him, in whom my soul delights, says the Father, and he delights in him because the servant pleases him. That was what he came to do. to please the Father in everything. Now, these words, of course, are the very words echoed by heaven, at least twice when the Lord Jesus came into the world, at his baptism, when the Lord was baptized and the Holy Spirit in visible form came upon him in the form of a dove.
And what does the opened heaven say? This is my beloved Son. in whom is all my delight, in whom I am well pleased." These words echoed from Isaiah forty-two, the perfect servant. Later on on the Mount of Transfiguration, the same words, when the Lord is glorified before the three disciples, This is my beloved Son, in whom my soul delights. Hear him. the servant's delight then is found in his relationship with the Father because he ever lived to please him this was climax perhaps in the Garden of Gethsemane where the Lord Jesus says not my will but thine be done now if we are servants of the perfect servant should not these characteristics reflect our lives as well as we seek to serve him when Paul for instance wants to to encourage
Timothy he says I live my life to please him who have chosen me to be a soldier do we want to please him in the way we walk and talk and live and and so on in all that we do together above everything else is our purpose to please him well that is there too and we ought to be living to please him the second thing I see about the servant here is the glory of his anointing with the spirit in the last part of verse one first there was the glory of his relationship with a father his ownership his strength, his purpose, but his pleasure in particular.
Now it is the glory of his anointing with the Spirit. I have put my Spirit upon him, it says here. The servant is anointed for the work that he is to do. Do you remember when the Lord Jesus was baptized and the Spirit descended on him as a dove? and the Spirit led him forth into the wilderness. And then he comes up into Galilee, and it says, the Spirit is upon me to preach when the Lord began his public ministry up in Nazareth in Galilee.
The Spirit is upon me to preach, and both the character and the work were manifested by the anointing of the Spirit upon Him. One of the things that characterizes the Lord Jesus as the perfect servant is that He is anointed by the Spirit of God. And that should characterize all of us who are His servants. We should be led by the Spirit of God anointed by the Spirit of God, led by the Spirit of God, day by day.
The glory of his relationship with the Father, the glory of his anointing with the Spirit. And notice one more thing, the glory of his mission. He shall bring forth justice to the nations. Isaiah's world like ours, was filled with injustice. All kinds of unrighteous laws were being passed in Isaiah's day, seven hundred years before the Lord. There were wicked kings on the throne. There was injustice in the land. We were talking this morning about prayer in the public schools and how far it is from the place in which our own country started.
years ago but there was injustice then too people good-thinking people at least and this encounters all kinds of people in our world conservatives and liberals and socialists and humanists they all say they're crying for justice some of them don't really mean it but at least they say they wanted but here it says of the servant that what the world has failed to bring, He will finally bring. He shall bring forth justice to the nations. And the end result of the work of the servant is going to be that for the first time in history there will at last be justice in the world.
Thank God for all who are seeking to bring a measure of justice to our land and to other parts of the world today. But justice will not ultimately triumph until the servant rules, until the servant reigns as king. And then at last there will be justice. And the reason is that there must be redemption before there's righteousness. I'm interested in missions and one of the big pushes in missions and mythology, which is the study of missions today, is in the idea of bringing social reform to our world.
And so we have social programs of all sorts, food programs and clothing programs and medical programs and educational programs and political programs. And evangelicals, to my mind, unfortunately, are beginning to focus on the social programs at the expense of preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. And social programs can never bring ultimate justice without change of heart that comes through rebirth, that comes through redemption, that comes through salvation. The commission that the Lord gave to his disciples was to preach the gospel to all the world.
And the gospel was not first food and medicine and education. The gospel is the message of life. And when that comes, that will bring social justice even faster than applications of money and medicine. I'm not saying these things aren't necessary, but they should come as an adjunct, a secondary place of the gospel rather than a first place, which is where we're being pushed in some circles today. The glory of his mission, he shall bring forth justice to the nation. I can't go on on that. I want you to see verses two to four where we see the glory of his service.
Notice what he says. He does not cry nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets. You know when the servant came, one of the things that characterized him was his gentleness. There's no self-promoting talk in the Lord Jesus. No self-assertion. No hear me. No big billboards. Hear this great man. But quietly he promotes the work that he was sent to do. You know, we can't read a newspaper article or an editorial or look at a painting or or look at any TV footage without credit lines and bylines and people getting acknowledgement for the things they have done.
That's just the opposite of the servant. He shall not cry. He doesn't lift up his voice. He doesn't send out people saying, here comes Jesus Christ. What he does is seek to serve the Father. His service is humble and gentle and quiet. And one of the things that characterizes him is this unostentatious way in which the Lord graciously and humbly seeks to do the work of the Father. We learn these things in hard ways sometimes. I occasionally tell the story of when we first arrived on the mission field.
And we were at Mansfield Mission Station with the Edwin Gibson. out in the country in South Africa among the Zulu people there and a year or so after we got there and we just knew a little bit of Zulu but enough to get along with the Gibbs left on furlough and and we were left in charge well as soon as the Gibbs left there was kind of a rebellion among some of the African leaders there and they appointed one of their number as the, as the leader or word that really means reverend. And this was very upsetting, particularly being new and not very afay with things.
I was most disturbed about this. So were many of the other Africans who knew much better. But this man, Harry Gambushin, had decided to take this name, and he had lots of support. and so on and they had done this at a conference and there were hundreds of people there but the question came up well what about this man Fleming that's just arrived this white man this missionary what do we call him and the answer was well let's call him the office boy now I heard that and i thought man i've left my home in seattle and come all the way here and is that what i am an office boy but the more i thought about it the more i thought maybe that's what i am an office boy can i be a servant to these people whether it's right or wrong as to what they have done What is your attitude toward yourself, Fleming?
How proud are you? Maybe you wanted that place that he's got. You see, the Lord Jesus was unostentatious. He was the servant. Self-denying service. He does not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets. He doesn't byline his articles. And then it's others promoting service. You see, he serves others. A bruised reed shall he not break. A smoking flax or wick, limp wick, will he not snuff out or quench?
You see, the work of the servant is to straighten bruised reeds. You've seen cat tails that have been bent over. And it's impossible to stand them up again. But the Lord does. The Lord does. He straightens bruised reeds. He reignites sputtering lamps. That's his work as a servant. He strengthens the weak. And they're going to stand again. and he reignites those who are sputtering, those whose wicks are smoking, and the light isn't very bright anymore, and they will shine again.
I think that bruised reed reminds us of our inability. The wick, the sputters, reminds us of how ineffective we are. But both of these should drive us to him. For the perfect servant, loves to straighten bruised reeds. He loves to reignite and relight sputtering lamp wicks again. You know, Peter was a bruised reed, and the Lord restored him. Mark was a sputtering witness.
He left Barnabas and Paul. he was restored and the work of the servant is to restore those bruised reeds those sputtering wicks and just as the Lord Jesus does this in our hearts he restores our souls doesn't he so we can be effective as servants too in seeking to carry on that ministry in the lives of those around us I'm sure in a community like this, plenty of needs, plenty of sputtering wicks.
They do a little relighting and cleaning. Plenty of bruised reeds that could do with some support and straightening. You're just doing the work of the servant like he was when you do that. Always room for this kind of ministry, brothers and sisters. no matter where we are well that's what he did and as the perfect missionary he wants us to do that as well then in verse four there's the glory of his faithfulness we've seen the glory of his relationship with the father the glory of his anointing with the spirit the glory of his mission to bring forth justice the glory of his service to straightened bruised reeds and reignite smoking lamp wigs then there's the glory of his faithfulness there's a little play on words in verse four for when it says the bruised reed and the will he not will he straighten and the smoking flax will
he not quench the word bruised and quenched are turned around in verse four and applied to the Lord Jesus for he will not be quenched and he will not be bruised he is not bruised you see he even though he serves those who are hurt he remains unbruised unquenched the protection of the servant and you know when we serve the Lord Jesus there's a sense in which we must remain as those who are not easily bruised by things or other people say things that are hurtful people do things that cut us and while we feel them we're not to be bruised by them he will not be quenched he will not be bruised you see he in his service is faithful and he is perfect and we're not although we should strive to be like him and he's given us the strength to be more like him and the
the lesson here what we do is that we should press on until we have finished the course never flag never fail but go on to the end see he was not bruised He was not quenched. And that's what we're to be like. And then finally, and my time is gone, there's the glory of his international blessing. In verse five and six he says this. Well, verse six in particular, I have called thee in righteousness. I will hold thine hand. I will keep thee and give thee for a covenant and for a light of the Gentiles.
You knew I'd find some missions in here somewhere, didn't you? Well, here it is. I can find it in almost every chapter of the Bible. But here it is, a light for the Gentiles. And if we're going to be good servants of the Lord Jesus, there will be an outreach in our service. Of course, the Lord reached out not only to his own, the Jew, but to all the Gentiles, to all those who are outside the scope of Judaism of his time as well. And there is the glory of international blessing here. And he reaches out, and of course the covenant ultimately has to do with that great covenant of grace that brought God's worldwide purpose to fruition.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus, that gospel whom we preach. And so we are his servants this morning. And we are to be like him, indwell by his spirit, belonging to the Father, seeking to do his work. Brews, reeds, smoking flaxes, preaching the gospel to wherever we have a chance to cooperate with what God is doing in the world. How wonderful to be his servants. How wonderful to follow him who is our perfect servant. Gracious Father, for the Lord Jesus, in those little ways in which we have seen him this morning, we give thee our thanks again.
We thank thee for him as our servant. We thank thee for him who did the great servant work of bringing and working salvation into the blessing